


already gone

by orphan_account



Series: where we aren't [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Betty Gets Very Philosophical and Deep, Changing Tenses, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Jughead is Jughead, Sort Of, gratuitous angst, lots of cheese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 04:31:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11959776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Written for a prompt at @bughead-fanfic-wishlist:Jughead died when they were 16, shortly after getting involved with the Serpents. Shot, stabbed, motor accident, you decide. Years later, an elderly Betty, already near-death, fondly reminisces on their short time together. Bonus points if there's a snarky but tender ghost!Jughead making sarcastic commentary on Betty's sentimentality, something she always gave him a hard time for in his writing, while also comforting her over her own imminent death that at least then they'll finally be reunited.Or: a serpent, the sound of motorcycle engine, and a rattling door.





	already gone

Sometimes, when she looks back on those short few months, it feels as if it all happened several lifetimes ago, in a foreign land, to a different Betty Cooper.

Perhaps it’s a side effect of time. Time wipes away fading memories no matter how much one desperately wants to cling to them. Perhaps she’s not the same person she was anymore.

Sometimes, she would replay those memories – or the little tidbits that she could still remember – and feel an odd sense of detachment, like an outsider watching a confrontation between strangers with the mild curiosity of a typical bystander.

Other times, the memories would register in her mind as hers, but the whole thing feels muted, like an out-of-body experience, except she’s observing them with the benefit of hindsight, watching their younger selves, happy and carefree, oblivious to the tragedy that would befall them and change their lives forever.

Even after all this time, she still doesn’t know where it all began to go wrong.

Perhaps it is a side effect of revisiting memories too often that they become unreliable, start to become what _should’ve_ or _could’ve_ and not what _did_. Perhaps it’s her own aging mind playing tricks on her; after all, she’s not the same person she was anymore.

 

 

 

 

Riverdale, as all small towns do, remains exactly the same as the day Jason Blossom’s murder shook the little community to the core, forced its inhabitants to come face to face with the ugly truth within each of them, and set a chain of events in motion, after which nothing would ever be the same as before.

She doesn’t know whether it was masochism or the comfort of the familiar that possessed her to return when decades ago, younger her hastily stuffed her bag with whatever was within arm’s reach at the time and tearfully drove out of Riverdale, swearing to never look back on the place she called home, the place that loved her and hurt her all the same.

Perhaps a small part of her hoped against hope that it had changed enough to appear virtually unrecognizable to her. Then it would just look like another one of the dozens of towns she had visited during her long and illustrious career. Beautiful, but without any baggage.

Or, perhaps it’s a side effect of dying; one tends to find a familiar and comforting place to lay down and let their body rest. For all their baggage-less beauty, those dozens of towns were not home. For all the pain it’s caused her, Riverdale was. _Is_.

And hell, she is definitely dying, because there’s no other explanation for what she is seeing in her kitchen right now.

_“Gosh, Betts,”_ a voice from several lifetimes ago echoes in her ear, and the use of that nickname she hasn’t heard in just as long sends a shiver down her spine. _“When did you become such a sap?”_

There he is, slumped on one of her kitchen chairs with his feet on the table, without a care in the world, looking exactly like the day he walked out the door of his father’s trailer, promising to be back before she finished making dinner.

And then, like a tidal wave, it comes back to her all at once.

The sight of the green serpent emblazoned on his leather jacket, followed by the rattling of the door as it slammed closed, and the sound of a Harley engine revving. The only memories that were burned into the deepest corners of her mind. The only memories that would not fade or distort, no matter how hard she tried.

In the present, he cocks an eyebrow.

_“Lo and behold,”_ he starts again, turning his attention back to the shoelaces on his combat boots. _“Never thought I’d live to see the day Betty Cooper refuses an invitation for banter.”_

The sheer _wrongness_ of that statement shakes her out of her reverie. She opens her mouth, then hesitates. Jughead seems to have caught her unease, and so makes no further attempt to be snarky or prod her for a response. Instead, he straightens out his amused expression, and patiently waits. It’s what he always did whenever she was upset; he’d refrain from making jokes or act too concerned, and wait for her to come to him whenever she felt ready. Another painful reminder. She hates it.

“You’re… here,” is all she manages. She isn’t sure how else to react, so she picks the most innocent, the most neutral answer, and stays where she is. She’s scared that if she shows emotion right now, she’ll break. She’s scared that if she takes one more step, she’ll fall to her knees, or worse, he’ll disappear again. She can’t. She can’t go through that again.

_“I am,”_ he replies easily, and there’s a certain softness in his voice that wasn’t there before. _“I did promise you I’d be back for dinner, didn’t I? I’d never broken a promise before, and I’d hate to start now.”_

This has to be a cruel joke. It has to be. Must be one of those stories believers in the supernatural always liked to talk about, dying people seeing things that aren’t there. Or one of those scientific theories of near-death hallucinations compounded by objects or places that trigger nostalgic memories. Betty was never been a firm follower of either side, choosing to straddle both and live her life with one foot in each. That way either way, there’s still a logical explanation. Either way, it all amounts to one painful if predictable revelation: he’s not real.

Of course he’s not. How could he be?

She has half a mind to turn around and leave the apparition there, but something compels her to stay, if just for a bit longer. That something, she recognizes, is the same sense of masochism that drove her back to Riverdale in the first place. If she dug far back enough, she would recognize that same masochism that shaped Perfect Betty Cooper who flinched and blamed herself for everything that ever went wrong in her life.

Maybe, she thinks, she hasn’t changed as much as she thought she did.

So she stays. She stays, and does something even more damning: she plays along.

“You did,” she tells him, but this time, all the weight has lifted off her shoulders. “but you’re still late.”

She deserves this much, doesn’t she? She’s lived a long and good life, even with the hole in her heart where he had been, a hole that he ripped open the day he left. She kept her promise even when he didn’t keep his, surely she’s allowed a bit of self-indulgence before she dies?

Jughead, for his part, manages to look apologetic. _“I know, I’m a bit late. I should’ve called you. Didn’t expect it to take so long.”_

_You have no idea_ , Betty thinks as she furiously fights back tears. Jughead may or may not be a figment of her imagination, but if there’s anything she learned about him from spending two minutes in his presence, is that he is perceptive, and the last thing she can deal with right now is a shadow of him fussing over her. It’s too much. It threatens to bring back all those deeply-buried memories, and she’s not ready, even as she’s nearing the end of her own life.

At the risk of sounding like a fanatic believer, as long as they do not exist simultaneously on the same astral plane, she doesn’t think she will ever be ready.

So instead she smiles as he puts forth multiple suggestions to make it up to her, and casually asks him about his dealings with the Serpents, and as he tells him about the latest lead he found while observing a drug deal, she feels like she’s been thrust back sixty-five years in time, to be sixteen-year-old Betty Cooper once again, jumpy and anxious as she ponders over her boyfriend’s decision to carry on his father’s legacy, the green serpent on his back searing into her vision.

_“I need to know, Betty,” he told her, cupping her face in his hands, as if trying to ease her nerves. “If there’s any chance, any chance at all, however small, that I can get to the bottom of this and clear my dad’s name, I have to take it. You understand.”_

_“I do, I do, it’s just…” she half-laughed. Always the champion of truth and justice, that he was. They had that in common, among other things. Looking back, it was only a matter of inevitability that they would fall for each other so deeply. “I can’t help but worry about you. The Serpents, they’re your family, I get it, but… the things they get involved in, Jug. I’m scared.”_

_He brought her forehead closer to gently rest against his. “I know. I’ll be careful, I swear.”_

_She gripped his hands, still cupping her cheeks. “Let me help you.”_

_He smiled then, a smile she liked to think he reserved only for her. “I don’t want to get you any more involved than you already are.” It was a rejection, and Betty tried not to feel hurt by it._

_“But…” she protested, but he sealed their lips together, and the words died in her mouth. Then he pulled his ultimate trump card. “Trust me.”_

_And just like that, she mellowed out._

_“I trust you.”_

Looking back, she wonders if that’s where it all began to go wrong. She wonders if she should have said something, anything, to change his mind. Had she not given up so easily, would things have turned out the way they did? Had she fought a little harder, would he have relented? Or would she have pushed him to the point where he’d be forced to choose between her and the Serpents, and that would have torn them apart anyway? Were they always doomed to fail no matter what they did, no matter what they chose?

_“Anyway, if Razor ever comes to you asking if you knew about anything pertaining to his stash, I trust you to keep my secret.”_ Once again, present Jughead’s voice pulls her back to reality.

“Sure,” she replies, hoping he didn’t notice her attention drifting elsewhere.

_“God knows what the man would do,”_ Jughead drones on, seemingly unaware that she’s not paying attention, not really. _“Heaven forbid he’d try and sabotage my bike again. The poor old thing is already falling apart as it is, really. The way it’s looking now, it’s more of a safety hazard than a means of transportation. I meant to bring it over to Ricky so he can take a look at it, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting any longer than I already did.”_

“Or you could always ask me.”

Jughead cocks an eyebrow, clearly not convinced. _“I appreciate your willingness to learn a new trade, Betty Cooper, but don’t you have your hands full with car mechanism already?”_

She shrugs. “There’s always space in my brain for more. Besides, going from cars to motorcycles doesn’t sound like a huge leap. I’d like to think I have the basics covered.”

She remembers Jughead’s bike all too well, an old thumper that he got from one of the older Serpents in exchange for a favor, whose engine always sounded like it was one step away from blowing up. She remembers regarding the vehicle with skepticism and apprehension when Jughead first proudly unveiled it in front of her.

_“Somehow I have a feeling the reception isn’t positive,” Jughead concluded after looking back and forth from the bike to her bewildered expression._

_“No, it’s not that,” she shook her head, laughing. “I mean, yeah, it does look like it might be more of a safety hazard than anything else, but if you think it’s more convenient than the truck, then by all means go for it.”_

_“Yeah, it’s old and slowly breaking apart, but I think with a little elbow grease, it’ll be as good as new.” With that, he began testing the engine._

The sound stirs up something unpleasant in Betty’s memory, of that fateful night, but she determinedly pushes it down.

The truth is, she didn’t want Jughead to have that motorcycle. Not because she thought he would hurt himself riding it (though he sure proved her wrong on that front later on). No, it wasn’t borne out of some misplaced sense of overprotection. To her, the bike was just another proof that he was getting deeper in with the Serpents, and by extension all the dangers that came with the territory. But she went along with it, because who was she to tell him what he could or couldn’t do? She said she trusted him, and she was going to stick to her word, no matter how much it scared or worried her. So she went along with it, biting her lip and telling herself that in just two years, they’d move away from the town they both called home, for a fresh start. Just two more years. Surely she could wait two more years for a lifetime of happiness?

She wonders if she made the right decision. For decades, she’s had to convince herself that there was nothing she could have done, because to believe otherwise is to live with the possibility that she could have prevented it but chose not to. Surely if Jughead had never got the bike, the accident would have never happened?

But then she remembers the promise she had made, to trust him, and it all dawns on her. Life is a series of events. A domino effect where each decision you make affects how the rest of your life is going to play out. How could she have said no? He would have realized she still had misgivings about his involvement with the Serpents despite having told him that she trusted him. It would have destroyed them. She made the decision to trust him. She had to live with the consequences that followed.

Maybe there isn’t a right way, after all.

_“Betty?”_ This time, he notices her air of distraction. _“Are you okay?”_

He tries to reach for her, youthful hands stretched out toward old, wrinkly ones. She shrinks away from him, keeping her gaze firmly on the ground. She feels anger suddenly boil up inside her.

“Why did you humor me?” She asked, tears welling up in her eyes. “You know none of this is real. Why did you play along?”

Not for the first time, he stays silent. It only serves to make her even angrier.

“Why?!”

_“I think you know why.”_ He answers, almost immediately, more sharply than she expected.

She sighs, tasting the salt on her lips.

“You’re not real,” she finally admits. “You’re just a figment of my imagination, my desperate attempt to gain closure. You’re just saying all the things I want to hear.”

His silence is neither confirmation nor denial.

“You know, I kept _my_ promise,” she continued, voice bitter. “I did all the things you told me to, all the things I’ve dreamt all my life of doing. I only asked one thing of you, and you couldn’t do it.”

_“I’m sorry,”_ he says sadly, voice barely above a whisper.

“Well, not that it matters anymore,” she straightens herself out and makes her way to the bedroom. “I’m tired. I’m going to rest for a bit.”

Slowly, she drags her old, tired body through the hallway to her bedroom. The door creaks slightly as she pushes it open, and she is suddenly plunged back into the past once again.

_Out of all the memories, this one had always proved to be the haziest. Maybe it’s the adrenaline pumping through her veins as it was happening, maybe it was the traumatic experience of being practically disowned by her own parents and kicked out of her own childhood home, maybe it was all the cacophony of her father’s yelling_ I will not have my daughter associate herself with trailer trash gang members _, her mother’s heartbroken_ either you choose him, or us _and_ _her sister’s helpless crying and pleading with their parents to stop. She remembers texting Jughead before storming out the front door, the wood creaking loudly as she shoved it open._

_He arrived ten minutes later to her sitting outside on the curb and Archie next to her, having draped a blanket over her to keep her warm in the November chill. They wordlessly left, the boys exchanging a brief nod, to the only place they could go: the South side._

_The door to FP’s trailer rattled briefly as they closed it behind them. They had decided to make it Betty’s temporary safe haven, as it would be best to leave her parents to cool off for a few days before any attempt at reconciliation could be undertaken, but a few days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into a month. Slowly, like puzzle pieces fitting together, they found a way to make things work, even if it was only on a bare-necessities, just-enough-for-survival level._

_It was there that they started actively working toward their plan, to leave Riverdale and all of its darkness and conflict, to move to a big city and pursue their dreams. It was that hope that kept them going even in their darkest moments: the promise of a future brighter than the life they were leading._

Betty lies in bed, gazing up at Jughead, who’s sitting at the edge of her bed, looking at her with watchful eyes. She hasn’t felt so safe in a long time. She briefly pondered over the irony of the situation, being watched by what may or may not be a hallucination, but never feeling so secure in her life.

She looks at him, for the first time really _looks_ at him, and is awestruck to see how young he is. _Were we really this young once?_ She thinks. Of course they were. They were once young and full of life, confident in the belief that anything was possible so long as they put their minds to it. They had so many hopes and dreams.

That was before life turned into death, dreams turned into fantasies, and all that was left of Riverdale’s _In Cold Blood_ was an unfinished manuscript, forgotten, never to see the light of day. The tears threaten to spill, and she blinks to stop from crying again.

“I’ve missed you,” she said finally. “It’s been so long. So long.”

_“I can only imagine.”_

“I’m sorry I snapped at you.” she apologizes, the anger having all but evaporated. In its place, she only feels overwhelming exhaustion.

He chuckles, but it’s sad. _“I guess I deserved it. For keeping you waiting for so long.”_

“I believe you just stole my line,” she smiles a little. “You’ve just robbed me of a grand and original entrance.”

_“Only you, Betty Cooper, can joke about dying, at a time like this,”_ he admonishes her gently, but she can still see the twinkle of amusement in his eyes.

She shrugs, or at least tries to, putting in effort to act nonchalant for the extra effect. “I guess your sardonic humor rubbed off on me.” Upon seeing that he was still unconvinced, she added, “My body may be old, Jughead Jones, but that doesn’t mean my soul has to shrivel up and die too.”

A moment passes in comfortable silence in which neither says anything. 

“Do you remember the night you left?” she asked suddenly.

_“Yes.”_

“I don’t.” she admits. She feels oh, so weary now. “No matter how hard I try, I simply can’t remember what happened before you left.”

_“It doesn’t matter,”_ he tells her, not unkindly. _“It’s all in the past now.”_

“It matters to me,” she counters. “Sometimes… sometimes I wonder what I said to you, before you left the trailer. I probably said something mundane like, _‘don’t be late for dinner’_ or _‘when you get back, can you fix the shower head?’._ I wish I’d told you I loved you. Sometimes, I like to pretend that’s what I told you before you got on that bike.”

_“You don’t have to tell me you love me,”_ he said. _“I know you love me. You told me that much the night of the Jubilee. You told me in every little thing you did for me. There are many ways to say ‘I love you’, you know. Some are just more direct than others. Doesn’t make them any less true or impactful.”_

She realizes her dead teenage boyfriend’s ghost just gave her octogenarian self a lecture of sorts, and the bizarre hilarity of the situation does not escape her, but she is too tired to point that out. Instead, she says simply, “I hope you’re right.”

Her eyelids feel heavy as a startling fear takes over her mind. Weakly, she tries to reach for his hand. He doesn’t pull away, but she can’t feel him. _Odd_ , she thinks.

“Stay with me, alright?”

_“I won’t leave you again.”_

 

 

 

 

_"I want you to promise me something, Betty,” he said. They were lying in the rickety old bed that had been his parents’, huddled together under the thin, worn out blanket, his hand in her hair, her head on his chest, playing with a loose blanket thread._

_“Mm?” she inquired absent-mindedly, not looking up. Then, a bit more teasingly, “uh-oh. Are we about to have a serious talk?”_

_“Hey, I’m just making sure we’re on the right track.”_

_At that, she pushed herself up so that they were facing each other. “Hey.” she said, seriously this time. “We are. We are, Jug. We’re gonna get out of here. We’re gonna go to NYC, rent a micro-apartment if we can’t afford anything else if we have to, then I’ll get a journalism degree and you can do creative writing and finish your novel there. And we’ll never look back.”_

_“Ah yes, and then move to the suburbs and live a boring white picket fence life with two-and-a-half kids,” he added, the humor back in his voice._

_“At least three kids, or I will find someone else willing to give me what I want,” she played along with his change of attitude. “but really, Juggie, don’t worry too much. We’ll be fine.”_

_“Still,” he said, seriousness returning. “I want you to promise me that no matter what, you will never give up on your dream. That you will become an investigative journalist just like you’ve always wanted. That you will live a happy and fulfilling life. Can you promise me that?_

_"Where's all this coming from?"_

_"He sighs. "It's nothing. I was just thinking about the future, once we get out of here. It may sound easy, that all you need is to escape the hell hole that is your hometown and  you'll be happy, but it's only going to be the beginning of another rough journey. It's practically building everything up from scratch. So, o_ _ur lives ahead may be difficult, and it may be all too easy to lose heart, to give up and settle. But I don’t want that for you. You’ve lived your entire life pleasing others and settling. It’s time to live for you.”_

_“I promise,” she said, earnestly. “but I also want you to promise me something in return.”_

_“Anything.”_

_“I want you to promise me that you’ll be there next to me, every step of the way.”_

_“… I promise.”_

 

 

 

 

She walks into an office she recognizes as the Blue and Gold. She had expected the place to be covered in dust from disuse, but to her surprise, it appears perfectly well-maintained, even with all the papers and newspaper clippings strewn all over the desks and pinned on top of each other on every wall. There are distant sounds of students happily chattering coming from the hallway behind her.

She gently lowers her bag onto the nearest desk, taking care not to rustle the papers, and takes a look around.

“Well, took you long enough.”

At the other side of the room, she sees him, standing with his back turned to her and appearing to be carefully studying what they both affectionately call, “their murder board”.

“Sorry, I got held up.” she can’t help but crack a smile, the first genuine smile she’s smiled in years.

He turns around and gives her an easy smile. “Well then, ready to get started? This case won’t solve itself, you know.”

She stands there, smiling, basking in his warmth. He is here, and he is with her. He is real.

His smile widens and his eyes do that thing they do when she is being playfully stubborn and he knows he can’t resist how charming and adorable she is. He extends his hand toward her.

“Come on now, Betts.”

She takes it, and suddenly, she is home.

fin.

**Author's Note:**

> If there was ever a dictionary entry for 'Gratuitous Angst', this fic would probably be mentioned in the examples. My apologies for any broken hearts and/or shed tears. Remember, I wrote this, so I'm right there with ya.
> 
> Sadly not beta-ed, but I did my best to proofread. This fic also marks my return to fanfic writing, being the first work I published since 2013. Hopefully it paves the way for future inspiration and more stories to come! Though I have to say I'm slightly concerned that the one prompt that cajoled me out of indefinite retirement was this one. I don't know what that says about me as a writer and a person.
> 
> The italicized parts are flashbacks, italicized dialogue is ghost!Jughead, and everything else is present time. Similarly, present tense is present time, while past events are narrated in the past tense. 
> 
> I deliberately left it open for interpretation whether the Jughead that Betty sees in this story was actually real or just a figment of her imagination, so it's all up to you to decide whether this story has supernatural undertones or not. Also, I originally ended it with the flashback, but ultimately decided that was too bleak even for my taste, and so voila! The final scene was born.
> 
> Title is from 'Already Gone' by Sleeping At Last (or Kelly Clarkson, whichever version you prefer).


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